


Belle Principesse (Beautiful Princesses)

by quandong_crumble



Category: The Avengers - Ambiguous Fandom
Genre: Child Tony Stark, Gen, Howard Stark's A+ Parenting, Mother-Son Relationship, Tony Stark Needs a Hug
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-17
Updated: 2013-06-17
Packaged: 2017-12-15 06:42:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,049
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/846503
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/quandong_crumble/pseuds/quandong_crumble
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Early memories of his mother are tinged with melancholy, the sweet musk of <em>White Diamonds</em> and the fragrant curl of smoke from menthol cigarettes. Somewhere there is also the perfume reek of gin and the sour fizz of tonic on his tongue when he steals sips from Mamma's heavy crystal tumbler.</p>
<p>A short vignette capturing a moment of happiness between 4-year-old Tony Stark and his mother.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Belle Principesse (Beautiful Princesses)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Saral_Hylor](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Saral_Hylor/gifts).



> This is a short piece I wrote for [Saral_Hylor](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Saral_Hylor/pseuds/Saral_Hylor) to explain the Stark family’s relationships in my much larger, as yet un-posted College!AU fic “Dreams Are For Sale”. However, it stands alone as a drabble in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and Saral convinced me to post it after she beta’d it.

Early memories of his mother are tinged with melancholy, the sweet musk of _White Diamonds_ and the fragrant curl of smoke from menthol cigarettes. Somewhere there is also the perfume reek of gin and the sour fizz of tonic on his tongue when he steals sips from Mamma’s heavy crystal tumbler. He remembers sitting on her knee while she perches on a stool in front of her dressing table. Her dressing gown under his fingers is cool satin; she won’t let him touch the dress she’s going to wear in case his grubby four-year-old fingers stain it. He leans back into her soft warmth, mesmerised by the golden light of the room, the curls of cigarette smoke from the ashtray in front of him, and by the way the light sparkles in her blond hair as she brushes it out.

“You look like a princess, Mamma,” Tony tells her, all childish earnestness, when she clasps the string of pearls interspersed with gold roundels around her delicate neck.

She laughs and takes another sip of sour fizziness from her glass, another long drag on the cigarette that reminds Tony a little bit of the goop Jarvis once rubbed on his chest when he was sick. She drops a kiss to his forehead, lips cool and soft.

“Say it in Italian,” she tells him, and he obliges, stumbling only a little. It’s their secret language that Dad and Jarvis and Yvette, his current nanny, don't understand.

He sits still as a statue while she draws around her eyes with the soft dark pencil, and while she uses the little brush to make her long dark eyelashes look even longer and darker. He can’t help but squirm while she’s reaching for her lipstick. She pauses, takes another sip of drink and another drag on her cigarette while he wriggles around, and the ash falls like snowflakes onto his legs.

“Have you got ants in your pants, Antonio?” Mamma asks.

Tony giggles and pulls at the waistband of his shorts, pretending to search for ants. “No, Mamma.”

She pretends to check down the back of his shorts, letting the elastic go with a ping that makes him jump and squeal. “No,” she agrees. “No ants. So sit still, my Tonio, while Mamma puts on her lippy.”

Tony’s so still he’s barely breathing while Mamma outlines her lips with another soft pencil. She looks funny with a red line around her mouth, like he did the last time Jarvis gave him a red popsicle, only narrower, neater and darker. He claps one hand over his mouth to stifle the giggle that arises, and keeps a still as possible while Mamma slicks dark red lipstick onto her mouth until it’s neat and perfect.

“Just like a princess, Mamma,” he tells her again. “I want to be a princess too.”

Mamma takes another breath of her cigarette and the end comes away stained red from her lips. She laughs the smoke in his face and holds up the tube of lipstick.

“Okay, Tonio, but you have to sit very still. Do this.” She opens her mouth and he copies. The lipstick is heavy and thick and a little bit sticky, and he rubs his lips together to feel the slick slide.

“And every _principessa_ needs perfume,” Mamma says, and dabs first his wrists and neck and then her own. She drains the last of her glass of fizz and swings Tony up in the air as she stands, then perches him on her hip and dances them around the room.

“Two _belle principesse_  ready for the ball. Da dum da dum,” she sings and swings around. The air is heady with cigarette smoke and the sweet musk of perfume and Mamma’s eyes sparkle in the golden light.

“Whoops!” They tumble to the bed, breathless with giggles. “Stay there,  _mio figlio_ , Mamma has to put her dress on.”

Tony lies on the bed, head still spinning, and watches as Mamma slides the pretty dark blue dress on. She fixes her hair and checks her lipstick in the mirror one last time, and he watches her re-cap the golden tube and slip it into a sparkly little bag alongside her cigarette case. He stands up and walks to the end of the bed, the springy mattress making him wobble, and checks his hair and lipstick in the mirror just like Mamma.

There’s a loud knock on the door only moments before it opens and Dad strides quickly into the room. “The car’s been waiting for ten minutes, Maria. Are you ready yet?”

“Mamma and I are princesses, Dad,” Tony announces, doing a wobbly pirouette on the end of the bed.

Dad looks at him and his eyebrows and lips twist into a very grumpy face. “What’s …? Is that lipstick, Maria? For God’s sake. Tony, go find Yvette and get cleaned up. You’re a disgrace.”

Tony knows not to argue when Dad uses that tone of voice.

“Yes, sir,” he says, and slides off the end of the bed. He runs down the hallway to his bedroom, and checks over his shoulder to make sure Dad can’t see when he opens his bedroom door instead of going down the next corridor to Yvette’s room. He shuts the door quietly, and then runs across the wide bedroom to slide under his bed. With his hands over his ears and his eyes shut, he can smell the perfume on his wrists and feel the stickiness of the lipstick on his mouth. He hums the song Mamma was singing and pretends they are still _belle principesse_  on their way to the ball. Pretends he can’t hear Dad's loud voice still shouting from Mamma’s bedroom.

 

When Tony hides behind the sports sheds with Tiberius Stone at age twelve to puff on stolen cigarettes, Ty looks at the crumpled packet and scoffs.

“Menthols, Tony? Only girls smoke menthols.”

Tony gives him a sidelong glance and shrugs expressively as he stuffs the cigarette packet back under the damaged panel on the back of the shed. He holds the panel out for Ty to poke his packet of Marlboros in alongside them. They sit side by side in the too-long grass where the teachers can’t see them, and the ash falls like snowflakes on their legs.

**Author's Note:**

> Author’s Notes: My Grandma is a very classy lady who wouldn’t dream of leaving the house without perfume, lipstick and her “beads” (any one of the millions of beautiful necklaces she owns). When I was a little girl visiting with her, getting ready to go to the shops was quite a production, and my sister, my little male cousin and I would all get Grandma to do our perfume, lipstick and beads before we went. Even in a small mining town, nobody blinked at the sight of my male cousin in bright lipstick and a string of fake pearls, and after a few years he discovered my Grandpa’s ties and decided he preferred them to beads and lippy.
> 
> The possibility of someone objecting was kind of the genesis of this story, but I pulled inspiration from a lot of places including but not limited to: _The Sherilee_ (Australian TV movie), _Billy Elliot_ , numerous fan fics that claim Maria Stark was of Italian descent, and that awful comic panel where Howard forces tiny Tony to drink a glass of bourbon. In my mind, this drabble precedes that scene in the comics.


End file.
